Once again we are told by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood that women exist to support, nurture, and strengthen men in order to make them strong leaders. But this begs the question: where are they leading us? The traditional answer insisted that women needed to be led by men due to their natural weakness, but now we are told that the men need the help.​

​Yet God made the man first, and he gives Adam a leadership role by asking him to exercise authority over the animals by naming them (Gen. 2:19). Adam has much to do, and the Lord notes his need for a “helper” (Gen. 2:18). The Lord takes Eve from Adam, forming her from his rib (Gen. 2:21). Her substance proceeds from his, an elegant reality which underscores that Eve’s physical safety derives from Adam’s masculine strength.

​Adam had much to do.

And because Adam was so busy, God decides Adam needs a "helper."

Can you see where this is heading? Since Eve was created to help the incredibly busy Adam, wasn't she created to help the man name the animals? In other words, wasn't Eve created to co-rule with Adam? Of course she was, for there was nothing else to do in the garden as everything was provided to them by God. On his effort to make the woman subject, Strachan makes the woman the man's equal.

​ But let's move on.​

Adam fills the role slated for men by taking Eve as his wife (Gen. 2:24). ​

Um... okay. If every man's "role" is to get married, was Jesus not a man since he didn't get married? How about John the Baptist?

But it gets better/worse.​

The one who gives his flesh to Eve in a sense recovers his physical wholeness through one-flesh union with her.

Men aren't physically whole unless they are married to a woman. And this begs all kinds of questions about Strachan's theology. If the man is helpless and incomplete without a woman, the man is like a child who needs a mother, for without the mother the child wouldn't survive. Talk about masculine strength!

Adam is in every respect the initiator, the leader, the one who bears the weight of responsibility for himself and others before God (Gen. 2:24-25).

Ah! Just like an infant, the man gets to initiate and this is the source of the man's pride; he doesn't need to have a conversation like a grownup, he can just issue directives like a hungry infant and things happens. Perhaps Freud was right about a man falling in love with his mother but he forgot to mention that he tries to replace his mother with another woman.

But it doesn't end there. The notorious penis-envy shows up in the next sentence.

In the wise and gracious design of God, women are “helpers.” They are to be wives and mothers, the bearers of children. While men lead, protect, and provide, women come alongside and support them. Sadly, after the fall the two vie for each other’s roles, men either becoming abusive or seeking to divest themselves of leadership, while women elbow for the primary role and threaten dissension.

Women threaten dissension!

Actually, this is exactly what Abigail Adam wrote to her husband John Adams, but not in the way Strachan envisions it, for patriarchy is as patriarchy does. Freud claimed women envied the man's penis, which was a sign that the man was capable of rational thinking the way the woman wasn't, and here the same theory shows up again. In reality, most women are perfectly content with their anatomy, and perhaps Strachan is more honest about it when he talks about the power structures instead of the penis. But that he sees it as a sign of sin tells us more about the man's need to rule over the woman than the woman's "desire" to rule over the man just as Ms. Adams pointed out. Look around you, where have women ever ruled over men? Isn't CBMW ruled by men?

​But it gets worse - again.

Generally speaking, God made men physically stronger, analytically inclined, and the initiator of the childbearing process. Women are often physically weaker and more emotionally and linguistically attuned than men, and they require physical initiation to bear children.

If men were so much more analytically inclined than women, men wouldn't be writing this garbage. And it is clear for anyone who has ever studied biology that the female body doesn't need initiation to bear children. The woman's body decides when to conceive. The sperm may swim ever so valiantly, but if the egg says no, the answer is no. Besides, this idea that the man must initiate in the bedroom is just another way of saying, "My needs matter more than yours." 1 Corinthians 7 tells couples that the initiating belongs to both equally. It seems that CBMW skips these verses, just like it skips all other verses that tell us that men and women are equal and created to serve one another equally.

​ I have to admit, the ability of CBMW to selectively read the Bible is nothing short of astonishing.

Men fight the wars of Israel; women in most cases do not. The failure of men to lead Israel in battle in Judges 4 is considered deeply shameful.

Shameful for whom?

Barak refused a direct order from Judge Deborah to go alone, and hence Jael ended the dispute when Sisera wandered off to her tent, but Barak still went to battle. This selective reading refuses to acknowledge the roles of Judge Deborah and Jael in securing peace for Israel for twenty years. It was Judge Deborah who spoke for God, and Barak refused a direct order from God; Jael was praised for her courage to act and all of Israel acknowledged it. Women led Israel and saved Israel. If that is shameful, then I guess we must all wonder why God asked Israel to do shameful things. But then again, shame can always be found where there is none, as it has over the many centuries that has passed since the Bible was written. Also glory can be found where there is none. I could go on, but I will spare all of us the time that it would require to write and read more about this nonsense. It is sufficient to say that Owen Strachan tries so very hard to find the ideas he loves in a book that doesn't contain them that he becomes like the emperor who shows off his new clothes to the crowd - even a child can prove him wrong.

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"Finding the truth is like looking for a needle in the haystack: it's easier if you use a magnet, but you need to know where to look or the magnet becomes useless. To find the truth we need to look for the "why" and not only at the "who," because the "why" explains the "who" in a way that the "who" cannot explain the "why." And when we find the truth, we find freedom." - Susanna Krizo